


A Little Off Center

by oldandnewfirm



Category: Human Target (2010)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-06-19
Updated: 2011-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:00:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldandnewfirm/pseuds/oldandnewfirm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An assortment of short fills written for various prompts across Livejournal. Multiple pairings/genres within; peruse and enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Morning After

**Author's Note:**

> A ficlet inspired by speculation as to what tattoos Guerrero and Chance might have over on the WPTJEH Livejournal community.

A ficlet inspired by speculation as to what tattoos Guerrero and Chance might have over on the WPTJEH Livejournal community.

* * *

Guerrero peeled his head from the pillow far enough to confirm that yes, it was daylight, and yes, the sun freaking _hurt_ before groaning and flipping onto his right side- facing instead the prone (and now, thanks to Guerrero's outburst, steadily rousing) form of Junior.

When Junior's eyes cracked open he winced and flung an arm over his face. Then, just as quickly, he raised it to squint at the man lying next to him.

" _Guerrero?_ "

"Last time I checked, though I'd rather not be at the moment."

Junior pushed himself onto his elbows, eyes still narrowed as he took in his surroundings. "Wait, wha-? Is this my room?"

Guerrero looked around. Sneakers on the ground. Sweatshirt and an old Rolling Stones tee piled on top of a battered black suitcase. More bottles of _Dos Equis_ than he could count littering the table, the windowsill, the floor. And- as a chaser, he supposed- a brown-bagged bottle of some liquor he couldn't identify but, judging by the taste in his mouth and the delicate perfume of Junior's morning breath wafting through the air, was probably whiskey. A good night, then. Pity he couldn't remember it.

"Nope." Guerrero said. "It's mine. I'm gonna guess you crashed here after- well."

He gestured to the colorful array of refuse from the night before.

"Oh." Said Junior. Then, "Ugh, my head..."

"You and me both, dude." Guerrero said.

"And my hip."

"What?"

"It stings."

"Did you bruise it?"

"Mm. Don't remember."

Junior hooked a thumb in the waist of his jeans and tugged the side away from Guerrero down. Junior's reaction seemed plucked from the pages of a self-help book: Confusion. Denial. Anger. Okay, back to confusion. And then Junior turned and gawked at him.

"There's a hummingbird on my hip." Junior said.

" _What?_ "

"A tattoo. On my hip. Of a hummingbird."

Guerrero raised his eyebrows. Then, steadily, his lips curled up and apart into a grin.

Chance drew back, held up his hands. "No, wait-"

Guerrero sprang, catching Junior off guard not with the movement but with the speed of its execution- after all, Guerrero had had plenty of years to master the art of high performance in the aftermath of an all-night bender. Junior hit the mattress with a _whumph_ -

"No, seriously Guerrero, stop!"

"Dude, relax, just let me see!"

-and the two tousled for a moment before Junior caught Guerrero's arm in a way that sucked the breath out of him and sent him reeling back to his own side of the mattress.

"What's wrong?" Junior asked at once. Guerrero shook his head and pulled up the sleeve of his t-shirt, wincing as the fabric caught on-

Guerrero stared at his shoulder. Then he stared at Junior staring at his shoulder, and Junior in turn managed to meet Guerrero's gaze for about five seconds before he collapsed to his side, his entire body spasming with laughter.

"Shut up." Guerrero growled.

"A unicorn!" Junior gasped out.

"Shut. _Up._ "

"It's got- the mane is a _rainbow!_ Oh god, it hurts but I can't stop laughing-!"

"Really?" Guerrero deadpanned. "Let me help you with that."

He leaned over and slapped Chance on the hip. Hard.

"Ha ha- _ow!_


	2. Morning After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For prompt: Human Target, Ava/Guerrero, turns out Guerrero is much more Ava's type.

  


* * *

"Eva?"

Eva looked up, hand and water glass poised halfway to her mouth. The man standing over her didn't bother hiding the once-over he gave her; at least he wasn't so bad looking himself. A little scrawnier than she liked, maybe, but he was wearing so many layers it was hard to tell.

She tipped her head to the side and looked at him through her hair. "Do I know you?"

"No. Frank does, though. Name's Guerrero." He offered his hand.

Ah.

She'd been wrong, she realized; the sharp lines of his wrist and forearm hinted at well-honed muscle beneath all those clothes. When Eva shook his hand she felt the rough contours of a calloused knuckle beneath the pad of her thumb, and the uneven angles of two once-broken fingers wrapping over her palm. A fighter's hand.

"Guerrero...you're with the guy who was working for Eddie. Chance."

He slid onto the seat opposite her. "You're thorough."

"So are you, from what I hear. Frank said you were the best."

"That's why you hired me, isn't it?"

"Confident too. But I haven't hired you yet." She slid a plain manilla envelope across the table. "Let's see what you can do for me, first."

Guerrero pulled the sheaf of documents from the envelope and started flipping through them.

"Wow," He said, after a minute or so. "Frank wasn't kidding. You really are in over your head."

She frowned. "He said that?"

"Not in so many words, but the implication was there...You were in Belgium, huh? How'd you get mixed up with Naylor?"

Good question. Wish I knew.

Out loud she said, "It's a long story."

"I've got time. Maybe over drinks?"

"Was that a casual suggestion, or an invitation?"

Guerrero's lip quirked. "Half and half. Whichever you prefer."

Eva considered him for a long moment. Then she reached into her clutch and fished out a ten dollar bill.

"Kalamazoo Stout," She said, smiling slightly. "And I think we'll go with casual suggestion. You might want to try that invitation again, though, when this mess is all cleared up."

Guerrero tapped the bill against his forehead as though he was tipping an imaginary hat, then stood and headed towards the bar.


	3. Stitches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a prompt on commentfic. Chance (Junior)/Guerrero pre-slash.

Written for a prompt on commentfic. Chance (Junior)/Guerrero pre-slash.

* * *

"All right, flip over. Let's see what we're dealing with here."

Guerrero does as asked. Apparently his shirt makes a handy washcloth, but it's not like he was going to wear it again anyway, damaged as it is. Junior swabs it over his back to clear away the bulk of the blood, and a moment later he feels Junior's fingers gently prodding at his back.

"Well," says Junior, "It's not deep, but it's not really shallow either. You can still feel everything, right?"

"Yeah."

"No nerve damage then. I think the best thing for it is to put in a suture until we get to Reno. Your guy can look at it then."

With that Junior reaches past him to drag over his duffel bag and starts rummaging through it.

"You could at least ask first, dude." Guerrero says, and he starts to sit straight again before wincing. It's not the worst knife wound he's gotten but it still stings like a bitch; he can feel the skin around it gaping every time he moves.

"Sorry." Junior flashes a smile that's more amused than apologetic.

"You have done this before, right?" Guerrero asks after a few moments.

"Please. I've done plenty of stitches."

Guerrero raises an eyebrow.

"...Well, okay, it was mostly tailoring, but it's the same in theory right?"

" _Dude_."

"Relax. You'll be fine."

"Really? If I end up in the hospital with a sub-dermal infection, I'm forwarding the bill on to you."

"Tch. Is that how they treat Good Samaritans these days?"

"Who knows? _You're_ certainly not one of them."

Something- or perhaps a pair of somethings- went _clink_ in the duffel bag.

"Hey dude, careful with the merchandise." Guerrero says.

"I don't even understand half the crap you have in here. Christmas lights? Pipe cleaners? A bag of sugar?"

"You'd be amazed at what you can do to the human body with a pipe cleaner."

"What about the sugar?"

"I like sweet tea."

Junior rolls his eyes.

At last he wrestles the first aid kit from the depths of the bag. It's actually a small fishing tackle, brimming with the kind of gear you'd be hard pressed to find off the shelf. The small bottle of betadine Junior uncaps isn't unusual, but the thick, hooked needle and spool of suture thread he pulls out after he's cleaned and dried the wound are.

"All right," Says Junior, then "Here."

Junior plucks Guerrero's sweatshirt from the floor and presses it into his hands.

"What- aw, c'mon dude. Can't you at least find a stick?"

"Do you see one?"

"This thing is gross.

"So turn it inside out! There's not that much blood on the front, and it hasn't soaked through yet. You won't even notice it."

Guerrero concedes the point, but he still sighs as he twists the sweatshirt in his hands and waits. Junior holds the suture needle over the flame of a lighter; his lips move soundlessly as he counts down the seconds. It's one of those weird little habits of his that he may or may not know about, like how he scratches his elbow when he's thinking hard, or the fact that he taps out the tune to "The Final Countdown" with his foot when a conversation grows boring. Guerrero's started keeping a list. After all, he never knows when he'll need blackmail material, or embarrassing stories to tell Junior's maybe-someday kids.

"Ow," Says Junior, and he bounces the needle from hand to hand until it's cool enough to pinch between his fingers again.

"It's done anyway." He says at Guerrero's questioning look.

"I'm not sure about this, Junior."

"Relax, it'll be fine. Now get ready. Really! Go on, bend over."

Guerrero rattles off the half-remembered lines of a prayer in his head, bites down on the wound sweatshirt, and waits.

"FUCK." He barks a second later, but it comes out more as "FWUGH" through the fabric.

"Yeah, sorry. Hey, it's not _my_ fault you don't have any anesthetics in here."

"I'll be rectifying that soon." Guerrero mutters. Tears prick in the corner of his eyes, and he keeps up a steady stream of obscenities as the needle plunges again and again through layers of skin. It feels like forever before Junior claps him on the shoulder blade and says, "All right. All done."

"Really?" Guerrero says as he pulls the coat sleeve out. His back burns even worse now, but when Junior shows him the results in a pocket mirror, he can't deny that it's a pretty neat job.

"If we find a gas station, I'll get you some ice." Junior says. He's pulling a roll of gauze from the kit, followed by bandages, and soon the wound disappears beneath cotton wrappings. It'll keep the sand out at any rate, at least until they reach Reno.

"I've got to admit, I'm impressed." Guerrero says as they clamber out of the truck bed and head back towards the cab.

"You should know by now that I'm a man of many talents, Guerrero."

There's a warm, familiar undercurrent to those words, and Junior catches his eye for a second too long before turning away to focus on putting the truck in gear.

Guerrero shifts uncomfortably but doesn't have time to dwell on it as a moment later the truck lurches forward- "Honestly, dude, how did you _ever_ earn a license?"- and then they're kicking up a cloud of sand as they barrel through the night, back to the highway.


	4. 2020

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chance/Guerrero, written for an early prompt on the Human Target kinkmeme. This was actually the first HT fic I ever wrote.

Chance/Guerrero, written for an early prompt on the Human Target kinkmeme. This was actually the first HT fic I ever wrote.

* * *

"You know, I've always wondered why you had glasses."

The comment was non-sequiter enough to drag Guerrero's attention from the sheaf of papers he'd been thumbing through. He looked across the room at Chance, who sprawled on the sofa with his head propped against a pillow and the armrest.

"For the same reason anyone else does...?" Guerrero said, letting the last words drag out.

Chance shook his head. "I know why _technically_ , thanks. I meant practically. Why not contacts? You wouldn't have to worry about them falling off or breaking, and you wouldn't have to keep doing that all the time."

"Doing what?"

Chance crooked his middle finger and slid it up the bridge of his nose.

"That. You did it just now."

Guerrero thought for second. "Oh. Yeah. Well to be honest, dude, I've never really been sold on the idea of shoving plastic slivers against my eyeballs."

"Well, shoving might be a bit exaggerated. And it's only weird the first couple of times. Once you get used to it, it's as easy as..."

He half shrugged and twirled his hand vaguely in the air.

"Putting on glasses?" Guerrero offered.

The hand dropped. "Pretty much."

"Yeah, no thanks. Wait. Do you wear contacts?"

"Yeah. You never noticed?"

Guerrero raised an eyebrow. "I don't exactly spend my free time gazing into your eyes."

Chance snorted and shifted his legs off the sofa so that he could stand. He gathered the small collection of leftover beer bottles and plates from lunch off the coffee table and stepped carefully around the sofa, heading towards the kitchen.

"Didn't expect you to," He said. "I'm just surprised that after all this time you never realized."

The pipes rumbled and whined in the walls as the water ran in the sink. Guerrero scribbled notes in the margins of the file in front of him and half-listened to Chance puttering around: dishes clinked, cabinets banged shut, the garbage can swooshed open, then the sink again. Chance emerged from the kitchen shaking his hands dry, and had nearly passed the desk when Guerrero said:

"Let me see."

"What?"

Guerrero tapped his bottom lid.

"Oh! Wait, why?"

"You issued a challenge to my powers of observation, and now I'm curious."

A shrug, and in a few seconds Chance was nearly nose-to-nose with him as he leaned over the desk. With two fingers he pried his eyelids apart, and what do you know? There it was; the faint yet unmistakable outline of a disk over his pupil.

"Huh. Interesting."

Chance released his eyelids and blinked a few times. Irritation gone, he settled onto his forearms, cocked his head to the side and squinted at Guerrero long enough to make the latter shift back in his chair and frown.

"What?"

"I do wonder how you'd look without those."

Guerrero made a vague noise and returned his attention to his work. "I guess we'll never know."

It was easy to forget how fast Chance was until he pulled stunts like these: in one moment Guerrero's glasses were firmly seated on his nose, and in the next they were pinched between Chance's thumb and forefinger while Guerrero reared back like he'd been slapped in the face.

"Not bad," Chance said, easy-as-you-please, while Guerrero could feel anger curling thick through all the spaces in his skull. That was something else Guerrero often forgot: Chance was clearly suicidal.

"Give. Those. Back." His voice was level and soft; his expression was anything but.

"Pretty handsome, actually."

"... _What_?"

Chance had already moved on, so it seemed, and he was bringing Guerrero's glasses up to his eyes and making the faces one usually does as the world shifts and warps before them.

"What are you, myopic?" Chance asked.

"You think I'm handsome?"

Chance shrugged without looking down. "That's what I said, wasn't it?"

Guerrero squeezed his eyes shut, then shook his head. "Chance. Uh."

"Look," Said Chance. He set the glasses back down on the table and mimicked Guerrero's head-shaking motion as the world presumably righted itself. "We've been through this before, haven't we? In overture, at least. Remember that time in Panama?"

"Well yeah, I suppose, but I always figured that was just-" He gestured wildly. " _You_. All part of the roguish charm thing."

Chance's smile curled slow and easy across his jaw. "Not exactly."

"Oh."

Then, for the first time, Chance looked unsure.

"I mean." He swallowed. "Unless you're not...uh..."

"Me?" Guerrero shrugged. "No preference. Makes life easier. I just never expected you'd think the same."

Chance let out a breath. "Well, you know me. I'm full of surprises."

He scratched the back of his neck. "So. Now that that's out there, if you're ever interested…I'm, you know. Available."

Guerrero's mouth quirked. Then, carefully, he shifted his papers and steno pads aside.

"How about right now?" He said.

"What? _Here_ , right now?"

"Why not? Winston'll be gone for at least another hour, and I can't do much until he gets back with those records anyway. Besides, I've been staring at this crap for three days straight. I could use a break."

Chance grinned, then caught Guerrero's chin in his hand and leaned forward to press his lips to the sharp curve of Guerrero's jawbone. Guerrero _hmmed_ softly in his throat, a sound that turned to a hiss as Chance's lips caught the lobe of his ear.

"Well," Chance murmured against his skin, "I do aim to please."


	5. Schadenfreude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a prompt on comment_fic: Guerrero + Ames, "Damn. Now he'd have to find a place to hide her body."

Written for a prompt on comment_fic: Guerrero + Ames, "Damn. Now he'd have to find a place to hide her body."

* * *

"How'd they know we were here?" Ames gasped as the air exploded with gunfire. A bullet shattered the cabinet above them, sending glass shards and pharmaceuticals raining onto their backs.

"Don't know. Not really important at the moment." Guerrero gritted out. He grabbed her by the shirt sleeve. "This way. Move."

"Jeez, you don't have to _drag_ me."

Guerrero paused long enough to give her a Look which, to his dismay, seemed to be having less and less of an effect on her. As it was she just rolled her eyes and crawled after him into the relative safety of the shadows behind a low pile of crates.

While they crouched, Guerrero ran through his mental map of the building layout. Judging by the angle, the sniper was camped out on one of the higher story balconies overlooking the skylight. Given that this was hardly the sort of apartment building one could just stroll into on a whim, either the sniper had offed a resident to claim his patio or Chance's suspicion about the landlord being in on the murder attempt against their client was right.

A shot pinged off the table they'd been standing near seconds before and embedded itself in the wall to their left. After that the only sounds in the room were their heavy breaths as they waited, tense, in the growing silence.

"Hey," Ames whispered after about two minutes had passed. She started to peer over the crate. "I think he's-"

"No-!"

A shot rang out. Guerrero cringed away from the blood spray as Ames' body bucked, then slumped sideways to the ground.

"Yup." Said Guerrero. "That was stupid."

* * *

"Guerrero!"

"Winston."

"Where the hell are you?"

"Out."

"I gathered that much. You were supposed to meet us half an hour ago!"

"Relax dude. I'm sure you'll survive for another twenty minutes." Guerrero tilted his head to better brace his phone against his shoulder. "Just let Chance know that I'm running late."

"What, you hit traffic or something?"

"No, just a minor detour."

"Is Ames still with you?"

Guerrero considered the garbage-bagged bundle at his feet.

"Yes."

"You two having fun?" Guerrero could hear the grin in his voice through the phone. He smirked.

"Tons."

He leaned down to inspect the locks on the chains binding the bundle to two large blocks of cement.

"Sounds like she's working out then, huh?"

"Actually," Said Guerrero. "I'm over the whole sidekick thing, dude."

Using his foot, he prodded the bundle closer to then over the edge of the small boat he'd borrowed for the occasion. He couldn't deny himself a small smile as the bundle bobbed for a moment, then was swallowed into the depths.


	6. The Way We Were

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A young Guerrero's detour through the woods leads to interesting companionship. This is a warmup to a larger piece I'll be writing that focuses on the early days of Chance and Guerrero's friendship.

A young Guerrero's detour through the woods leads to interesting companionship. This is a warmup to a larger piece I'll be writing that focuses on the early days of Chance and Guerrero's friendship.

* * *

" _You should be in school_ _,_ " nagged a voice in David's head. But it was easier to ignore these days, and he did so now as he picked his way through a field littered with bald tires, broken glass, and the rusting skeletons of abandoned cars.

The Bend was the sort of place you only heard about in whispers, not because it was dangerous but because you weren't cool enough to go there. It didn't seem like much from up on the bridge that spanned this part of Miller's Stream and it still wasn't, really. But even a dump like the Bend cleaned up nicely in Autumn, when the trees ringing the field stood proudly in their fall colors and filled the gaps between the garbage with a vibrant carpet of red-and-gold that crunched beneath David's feet as he walked.

"You lost?"

David's head snapped up. The voice came from the mouth of an old train car a few yards away in which stood a blonde boy about David's age. The boy regarded him lazily through the curl of smoke rising from his cigarette.

"No. I just didn't feel like going to school today."

"And you came here instead of the arcade, or the ice cream shop?"

David shrugged. "I don't have any money."

The boy gave him a look like he found that very hard to believe. David felt a pang of self-consciousness as he realized for the first time the contrast between his crisp school clothes and boy's weathered tee and jeans. But the boy seemed more amused than upset.

"I've seen you before," the boy said, after a moment.

"You have?"

"Yeah." he scratched his chin and squinted at David as though trying to place him. Then he snapped his fingers.

"You're the one who broke Douggie's finger!"

"Douggie?" David asked.

"This kid. He's fourteen I think, kinda chubby, pretty pink in the cheeks?" the boy said. "Anyway, I heard he tried to toss you around for a comic book and you kicked him in the balls and snapped his pinky."

"Sounds familiar," David said vaguely.

"Everyone was talking about it. The kids that saw said you fought like you were crazy."

By the time he finished, respect had trickled into the boy's features. David said nothing.

"What's your name, kid?" the boy asked.

"David," he said in a tone that suggested revealing this information had taken serious consideration.

The boy nodded. "David? Well, I'm Luke."

Ah. Each of the Westerly Orphan's Sanctuary boys was infamous in his own right, and the middle school population of P.S. 120 knew them all by name and reputation if not by face. After all, it paid to know which boys might spare your allowance if the wind was right and which would crack your nose like an egg if you so much as squinted at them. Not that David had problems with the boys these days.

Luke, unlike most of the boys, wasn't known as the violent sort, though the ease with which he carried his wiry frame seemed to belie the potential for it. More often David heard his name being whispered by the local shopkeeps as though they were afraid of invoking him. The kids in David's grade had lost count of how many missing titty mags, and cigarettes had been attributed to Luke and his friends, even if they were nowhere near the store in question at the time.

"So," said Luke, "what brings a fine upstanding chap like yourself to the Bend on a school day?"

As he spoke, Luke dropped to the floor of the car and folded his legs under himself. He produced a battered pack of smokes from his jacket pocket and jiggled it in David's direction. David shook his head but accepted the gesture for the invitation it was and hopped up onto the lip of the car.

"I thought it'd be quiet," David said as he sat down.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I was here first."

"I don't mind. You're all right."

"And if I wasn't?" Luke asked, grinning. "After what I've heard..."

David just shrugged. "Nothing. I don't pick fights."

"Really?"

"Really," he said. "I am, however, happy to finish them."

Luke plucked his cigarette from his lips and laughed. David felt himself smiling too, even though he hadn't mean to.

"Tell you what," said Luke after he'd calmed. "You come back here tomorrow, I'll introduce you to some of my pals."

"Yeah?"

"Sure, if you want. We can all hang out."

David had an idea of what that would entail. There was a reason why the police knew the staff at the Sanctuary so well, and a reason why David's dad had forbidden him from so much as looking at kids like Luke.

Of course David didn't plan to waste his life doing something as lame as what he was _told_ to do.

"Sounds fun," said David. "Same time tomorrow?"

Luke bobbed his head, still smiling, and held out a lean-fingered hand. David squinted at it. Then, slowly, he clasped it with his own and accepted an enthusiastic shake.

"I think you and I are gonna get along fine," said Luke around his cigarette.

Though he couldn't be sure why, David agreed.


	7. Recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Done for a prompt: Chance/Guerrero, either one of them suffering the ill (after) effects of Dengue fever/Malaria and being nursed by the other. Again, secrets revealed. Slash please.

Done for a prompt: Chance/Guerrero, either one of them suffering the ill (after) effects of Dengue fever/Malaria and being nursed by the other. Again, secrets revealed. Slash please.

* * *

Two weeks into Guerrero's recovery and the air in the common ward still smelled of sick. Or maybe that was because he _had_ been sick recently, Chance realized when he caught whiff of the bucket at his friend's bedside. He set down the cup he'd carried in with him and, delicately, took the bucket by the handle and retreated to the washroom to empty and clean it.

He returned to find that Guerrero had roused in his absence, and his bleary eyes now roved the featureless curtain at his bedside. He moaned softly as Chance set the bucket down, or at least that's what Chance thought until Guerrero's head shifted a fraction, letting him squint up expectantly.

"Sorry?" Chance leaned over.

Guerrero sounded like he'd swallowed a mouthful of glass. "I said, 'M not dead yet?'"

Chance patted his elbow. It was as clammy as the rest of him in the broiling heat; even the hair on his arms was limp with sweat.

"Afraid not," he said, smiling.

Chance cranked up the bed, then retrieved the cup he'd set down earlier. Ice sloshed against its sides as he lifted it. Guerrero's eyes rolled to follow its path through the air; his lips had already parted by the time Chance brought the rough plastic rim to his mouth.

Glug by glug, the cup emptied. Twice Chance pulled it back so Guerrero wouldn't choke, earning him a weak glare before Guerrero conceded and drank with less gusto. When he'd finished he closed his eyes and slumped even further into the bedding.

"I fuckin' hate Africa man," Guerrero mumbled. His voice wasn't as rough now.

"I think the feeling is mutual."

Guerrero draped his arm over his eyes and said nothing. Comfortable silence settled between them. Chance took a moment to properly bask beneath the fan over Guerrero's bedside, pitiful though its relief was.

"Go home, dude," said Guerrero.

"Sure. As soon as you're better."

Guerrero frowned. "Could be days, dude. Joubert'll be pissed."

Chance shrugged. "You're valuable. He'll get over it."

"I think you're overestimating Joubert's opinion of me."

For a while Chance said nothing. Then, he sucked in a breath.

"It wasn't his opinion."

Quiet, then, long enough for the threads of anxiety in Chance's stomach to coil into knots. Finally, Guerrero dropped his arm to his chest and gave Chance a watery smirk.

"Dude. Don't get sappy on me. I'm sick, not dying."

"Says the guy who's been asking me "am I dead yet?" for a week."

"Let's table this conversation," said Guerrero, "for when my brain's not trying to pop out of my ears."

"Fair enough," said Chance. Inside, his bones nearly went limp with relief. "See you tomorrow?"

"Mhm."

When Guerrero's breathing slowed and started to even out, Chance gathered his things and started towards the door.

"Thanks."

"Huh?" Chance turned.

"For sticking around." He smiled faintly.

"What happened to 'don't get sappy'?"

At that, Guerrero flipped him off. Chance grinned and left.


End file.
